


no stranger to the wind

by biannabeth



Series: a million moments i might want to forget [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, No Plot, Post MoA, Tartarus, Too Many Thoughts, annabeth chase has thoughts, annabeth is a nice person goddamit, characterstudy, first person POV, pre HoH, ptsd in the making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29120937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biannabeth/pseuds/biannabeth
Summary: They spend a lot of time falling. Annabeth spends a lot of time thinking.A character study of her thoughts during the fall.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Series: a million moments i might want to forget [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136726
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	no stranger to the wind

**Author's Note:**

> i get in my head too much so this is one way to channel that i suppose
> 
> title from ‘any way the wind blows’ - hadestown
> 
> (also posted on ff.net as A Long Way Down)

Here's the thing — I know just about everything there is to know about Greek mythology. That's kinda how it works when you know they aren't myths. I'd spent my life hunched over books, eyes aching and head throbbing because I needed to know this information. At first, it was interesting. It was research for the quest that I desperately longed to go on. It was my heritage.

Then it was my livelihood. I would spend hours on end slaving away, doing everything I could to learn about every story I could get my hands on. As far as I had been aware, my best friend was predicted to die on his sixteen birthday. If there was even the faintest hope that I could find something to change his fate then you can bet I would do everything I could. But things were never as they seemed. Miraculously, he hadn't been the hero of the prophecy all along. And now I was left with an abundance of excessive knowledge on monsters and legends and battles that had long since ceased. Granted, the information was useful on more than one occasion. It paid to know the grievances of Gods and heroes. It helped to know of old grudges and tricks in how to defeat each monster. I had a thirst for knowledge, presumably a trait of my mothers that meant I hungered for information. But for the first time in seventeen years, I wished I hadn't learnt quite so much.

Tartarus was the home to all the monsters, a literal pit of damnation. A long way down. And I was falling.

Not only that, but Percy - loving, brave and loyal-to-a-fault Percy who I had wished was by my side for the last eight months - was falling with me. It was a cruel trick. I'd wanted more than anything to see him again and to fight by his side, it's where we worked best after all, and as soon as we were together again I had pulled him down with me. Part of me wished he wasn't so selfless as to reach for my arm when I started to slip, but then again, that's one of the reasons I had fallen for him.

Fallen for him. Another taunt. I might have fallen for him in the way it was supposed to mean, but he was the one that had taken the fall for me quite literally. It was his fatal flaw after all.

Of course, that's why I was down here as well - my fatal flaw. One moment I was proud. I had done what no child of Athena had ever been able to do. I had faced my greatest fear and used my greatest strength to defeat Arachne. I had been so clever, so quick-thinking and somehow I'd been able to remain calm. The moment my eyes had met Percy's, I'd beamed. It was over. I had succeeded. I'd allowed myself a moment to take in my achievement but that was all that was needed. A light tug at my ankle brought me back into fight mode and my eyes had widened. Arachne still had a hold of me. Another tug and Percy must have come to the same conclusion. My hand scraped on the floor, clawing for some kind of hold but it was no use. He had grabbed my aching hand and for a moment, I thought that was it. Maybe I wasn't going in. Percy was strong, stronger than he had been last summer even without his invulnerability, he could help me. He could pull me to safety just like the two of us had done with Grover so many years ago. Just like he had done with me on Olympus last summer.

I had the nagging thought even then that this was inevitable. The voice from the pit had tried to tell me. The air around the gaping whole of the floor was like a vacuum and I was going to get sucked in, one way or another. If only I had been as scared about being this close to the pit as I had at twelve years old. Perhaps I would've seen past my pride and noticed the thin thread wrapped around my ankle. One swipe of my dagger and I would've been safe. One clear minded thought before I'd been pulled down and Percy and I would be safely wrapped in each others arms on the Argo II by now.

At least I was in his arms now. The only pro of having him by my side was the feeling of safety I had when I was with him. I was already dreading falling by his side knowing full well I could've prevented it, but at least his arms were around me.

Pressed chest to chest, I could feel the vibrations of his voice as he spoke, but the wind snatched away his words. My mouth was moving too, breath sucked out of my lungs, muttering desperately. A plan. We needed a plan. Only problem being I didn't know what the plan was for. There was no guessing what we would find when we landed. Who's to say we would even survive the fall. Percy had mentioned the doors but the chances of the crew getting to the other side at the same time as we did must be minuscule.

'A little hope is still hope', Sally had said months ago. It had been about finding Percy, but maybe it was applicable to this scenario too. I had to have hope we would make it out. For Percy. For Sally.

Guilt swarmed my head and tears clouded my vision. Sally didn't even know. It was all well and good for me to cling to Percy and know that, at least for the moment, he was alive. Sally wouldn't know. His own mom hadn't seen him for eight months and maybe she wouldn't see him again. Another family that I had come between. Another family I had managed to fracture. Would my own father even know where I was? Would he care? No, of course he would care. Our relationship was strained but he was still my dad. He wouldn't get to see me reach seventeen. Not that he had been around for many of my birthdays anyway, I'd usually spent them at camp even when I was living with him, but he always sent a present. Would he even know I was dead before he sent the gift? A vision haunted my mind of Malcolm sat in the Athena cabin perched on his bunk and glaring at the neatly wrapped package from my father. He would have to have the phone call to my father, him or Chiron. It would be one of his head counsellor duties. Inform the parent of their deceased child. It was the worst job on the list, even next to kitchen duties.

Screwing my eyes shut, I said my goodbyes. There was no way anyone would hear them, not even Percy who was pressed against my body. My siblings back in Cabin Six - even the youngest, a nine year old girl that had arrived at camp this summer that only knew me as the counsellor that was angry and tearful and rejected her responsibilities - who would have to pack away the blueprints and Argo II designs for their sister that would never come home. My step-brothers, Bobby and Matthew, who had only just grown used to me and the dangers that I brought when I visited. Maybe it would be easier on them, there was always the possibility that this time would be the last time I came home. They would be okay. Mom would be fine. I was far from the first child of Athena to die on this particular quest, I was just the first to get the job done before she died. Athena was still split between herself and Minerva. By the time she came to her own, I would be a thing of the past.

I thought of my friends, my teammates and the crew on the Argo II. In the time I had known them, I had learnt to trust them.

Though I hadn't particularly bonded with Jason, we had a mutual connection in Thalia and a shared interest in structure and knowledge that I hadn't found in anyone since Beckendorf had strategised with me in the months leading up to the first war.

And Leo with his whirring mind and nimble, skilful fingers who was so strikingly different from his brother, a brother he had never even met yet still felt overshadowed by, had become a fast friend of mine. We had spent free evenings poring over designs for the ship and snacking on the fast food that I brought with me on every visit to camp. Each time I returned, Leo would show his progress, eyes dipped while he waited for approval. I saw myself in his movements, fingers tapping anxiously in morse code against his leg. In Leo, I was reminded of my own eagerness to please, desire for acceptance. Hopefully he would learn that he didn't need everyone, just a few, dear people. I had meant to tell him that in person but it didn't matter anymore. It wasn't like I would get the chance to do that now.

I thought of Piper. Like Leo, she had big boots to fill in the Aphrodite cabin. Though Silena's betrayal had jeopardised the camps efforts in the war, in the end, her heart had been in the right place. Piper would avert her eyes whenever her sister came up in conversation and I couldn't really blame her for it because of course she would want to be as far away from the Aphrodite stereotypes as she could. She had already proved her difference in her claiming, to which I was still bothered by. Wasn't Aphrodite supposed to make her children feel beautiful and loved? Maybe the V-neck and perfect makeup would work for most of them, but Piper had her own style and that was far from it. Countless times, my friend had proven that she was more than what she seemed. I was confident that Piper could help lead the crew to victory again. Her words could move mountains, after all.

Not to forget Hazel and Frank, I muttered a goodbye to them too. They had only been part of the crew for a small amount of time but I already owed them so much. They had been there for Percy after all, and it was thanks to Frank that I had been able to pull off the finger-trap design for Arachne.

There were so many people to think off. It was overwhelming to know that I had made so many connections and that people might actually miss me when I'm gone. It's a sharp contrast to the first time I felt certain I would die. Back in the days when I was on the run with Thalia and Luke and every scary turn made me think 'this might be it'. Back then, the only people that mattered to me were the ones that would (and did) die besides me. A pang shocked through my gut as I remembered the agony I had felt at Thalia's death. Would Thalia feel the same now that I was gone? Thalia wasn't seven like I had been, she wasn't even fifteen technically, but she was a painful reminder that even my oldest friend would certainly be upset by my passing. We were a family, we always had been. Even when Luke was at his worst, the memory of the three of us was always prominent. At least Thalia had found her new family in The Hunters.

Images flashed on the back of my eyelids. Grover, the Stolls, Katie, Clarisse, Miranda, Malcolm, Will, Tyson, Lou, Chiron, Nyssa, Drew. They already felt like distant echos of a past life. Was this it? Was I dying right now as we fell?

My body felt numb. I pulled Percy tighter just to be sure he was still there and to feel something. He squeezed in response, his hand against my back where my skin had been exposed. If the rumble of his chest was anything to go by, he had said something to me. I daren't pull my head away from his shoulder to read his lips incase the wind that whipped around us somehow got between and separated us. In hindsight, I would've taught him morse code - though there was no way I could've predicted we'd need it. Of all the things that could've gone wrong, I hadn't even considered this.

At least there was Percy. There was always Percy. Except when there wasn't, I reminded myself, but that was a thing of the past by now.

What was Percy thinking? Probably that he should've noticed my falling before it happened, he had a tendency to worry himself silly like that. If I thought he might've heard what I said, I would've told him it's not his fault. Stuff like this was never his fault. He was probably thinking of all the people he wouldn't get to say goodbye to thanks to my hubris: Grover, Sally, the crew on the Argo II, maybe his other friends in New Rome like Reyna or that slender boy with all the stuffed animals. No. On second thought, Percy was clearly not fond of him.

Was he thinking of every memory he could and reliving moments of the past for the final time?

Arachne's tapestry appeared in my head, making me remember our underwater kiss. The things I would do to have that moment again. To live forever in the lake at Camp-Half Blood, my lips pressed to Percy's in a picturesque image that would last a lifetime. There were only moments left of my lifetime, so it wouldn't last all that long, but still I would rather experience that burst of happiness again over the dread that overcame me now.

I must have started crying at some point because small droplets were flicking upwards off my face at an alarming speed. I pressed my lips to Percy's jaw and squeezed my eyes shut. Fresh tears were strewn off my cheeks from the strong wind, the liquid vanishing further away. Liquid. The five rivers of Tartarus. Percy.

Maybe my research had paid off after all.


End file.
